About Me - Douglas Sharp

Since 2011 I have worked as a Gestalt psychotherapist. I have always been motivated to find out what drives us, scares us, and supports us to live more fulfilling lives.

Why? My own difficulties in school gave me the motivation to find out more about my own life journey. Coupled with a curiosity to understand how the human mind works I was motivated to study social work and psychotherapy. I have enjoyed getting under the surface of what is obvious. At 5 years old I remember taking apart a toy fire engine so I could know how it was put together.

For 15 years I worked as a social worker. I held various posts in group work, emergency work, Kinship assessment, and latterly in a child protection team. I now work in social work education – I have mentored and tutored almost 100 University students through their core training. I am an active partner with Scottish Universities as a Practice Educator on their BSc and MSc programmes.

In the last 2 years I have added trauma approaches to my therapy portfolio and I now use these fully in my practice – these approaches are CRM (Comprehensive Resource Model)and DBR (Deep Brain Reorienting). If you want to read more about these models please look up the books section on my site.

I have recently diversified to devise and deliver training in promoting Psychological Safety in the workplace and achieving Mental Fitness.

I am currently integrating new learning from Liberating Structures and Otto Sharmer’s Theory-U. These inspiring approaches are driving my appetite to take a liberating and presence-oriented approach to work with organisations. I am also eyeing up training as a Yoga instructor as I want to contribute to my own physical pension, and support those I work with to move more and stretch themselves in ways they could not have imagined,

In the last few years I have trained in CRM (Comprehensive Resource Model) and DBR (Deep Brain Reorienting) therapies. I use these methods to support people who have experienced trauma to work through difficult personal issues and resource for resilient future living.

I am a life-long sports-person: an amateur sprinter as a teenager, a keen (not talented) footballer through my 20/30’s, and an avid cyclist. I raced BMX as a kid, and I now race on the (very muddy) Scottish Veteran Cyclocross circuit. I love to cycle in Spain and France on a sunny day over a long mountain pass. Most importantly, I am a dad of twin girls and I am now supporting them to take the big step into Secondary school.

If you are considering working with me, I want you to know that I view human beings, not only as thinking beings, but feeling and doing beings.

I believe that we all have massive potential if we can tap into these 3 parts of ourselves.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so let’s connect with those parts, create some energy (with support from others), and grow to become…